Being a buzzkill doesn't make it less true, though. I'm disappointed to see the parent comment being downvoted.

It's pedantic buzz killery, which is boring and lame.

Are we going to... not fly planes any more? Drive cars? Deliver cargo? Take trips to visit family in another town/state/country?

"Hey Tim, how was the weekend?"

"Great. I drove down to Portland to see my mom after her surgery, she's doing gr--"

"You decided to spend your weekend destroying the environment?!"

It may be true, but I would expect this sort of waste is a drop in the bucket -- drop in the swimming pool, even -- compared to all the waste going on over the rest of the planet during the same time period.

That's not to say we shouldn't avoid waste, but this flight was a pretty momentous occasion (final delivery flight of a 747), and I think it's appropriate to mark that occasion in some unique manner. Burning a bunch of extra jet fuel doesn't seem all that inappropriate, especially considering the total amount of jet fuel burned in a given day.

There's just really no need for such buzzkillery.

> drop in the swimming pool

That's pretty close. It could be a good chance to educate people, perhaps, without turning it into a buzzkill. "This plane burned 27 tons of fuel for that pretty pattern in the sky, but if that sounds like a lot of fuel just wait until you find out that planes burn a million tons every day!"